60 Minutes
by Loki Ice
Summary: I made this up... A girl named Hope has a happy childhood...until middle school. Rumors. Anorexia. Cutting herself. Depression. Rape. And finally, she is faced with the desire of suicide. Will she see that she is still loved? That God is still there?
1. Chapter 1

I wandered through the slick gray streets, feeling lonely and obscured by the misty sheets of drizzle that were cascading down from the clouds. I was again sinking into depression, self-pity, self-hate. A thousand times I had lifted my shirt and probed my small belly. A thousand times I had sliced a dripping red smile on my wrist. A thousand times I had eyed the pills in the cabinet, the bottle sitting next to my medications I took for my depression and panic attacks. The kind with the threat of serious side effects. A thousand times I stared down into the toilet, emptying my body of all evil.

So it seemed.

Now I was planning to end my life. I was tired of the pain, the bullying, the hateful words. I was tired of lashing out to make them all go away. I was tired of counselors, medicines, and hospitals. I wanted to go. I wanted to die. I slipped into an alley and concealed myself in the shadows, my cold, numb fingers sliding over the frigid steel gun in my pocket. A bullet to the head. The heart. The lungs.

Wherever it went, I would die.


	2. Chapter 2

My life hasn't always been this way. I grew up an only child, spoilt, loved, dressed up in little pink dresses with frilly, fluffy bows. I would run through the lush grassy fields, my father chasing me, laughing. He always caught me, as I could never run too fast on my little toddler legs. He would swing me around singing my name in a little rhyme he had made up:

"Hope, Hope, I love you my shining Hope, love you my darling sweet. With you I'll always be able to cope and never with darkness will I meet."

Hope.

Shining through all mist and fog.

An anchor in times of distress and misery.

Why had all my hopes been shattered?

Why had my light been blown out?

Was there still hope?

Not for me.


	3. Chapter 3

When I turned six, my mom got a better paying job in the city and we left the warm sunshiny countryside with its plushy green meadows. My days of chasing butterflies, being chased, and napping on the creaky, whitewashed porch swing in my father's warm, safe lap were over.

The city.

Scary, loud, always smelling of gasoline, oil, and dampness.

Bustling, rude crowds and honking taxis abound.

We settled into a flat: small, cozy, and still homey. I went from homeschooling to public elementary, and was accepted by the kids there because I was pretty, smart, and wasn't the cowgirl, smelling-of-hay, tractor type girl. That wasn't my countryside.

Years passed and middle school came. 7th grade was easy, 8th grew harder.

The bullying started.

Taunts about being fat, when I was thin as paper.

Lies about being an attention seeker due to my panic attacks.

Turned backs.

Hateful looks.

Smirks, giggles, gossip.

Notes started appearing in my locker.

Profanity, hate, and poison scrawled in sickly black ink.

Girls started cornering me, smearing my face with lipstick while telling me what an ugly clown I was.

My straight A's began to slip; my parents' concern started to show.

Unexplained bruises, disguised tearstains, hidden scars.

I didn't want them to worry, there were already stressed enough with work and money.

I stayed up until three in the morning doing homework and extra credit. My grades came back up, but the black circles surfaced. I concealed them with eyeliner.

More taunts.

I started looking at myself more in the mirror, analyzing every inch of my small, slim body.

_I'm not fat…_I told myself.

But I didn't believe it.

Food cutbacks.

Weight drops.

My ribs showed even more.

My hipbones popped and my spine became defined.

My stomach hurt.

My panic attacks got worse.

The screaming, puking, and trauma increased.

My period stopped.

I was wasting away, living off my ever-flowing tears.

When would this all end?

My nightmare wasn't something to wake up from.

I was wide awake in reality.


	4. Chapter 4

Of course, my parents noticed.

I finally broke down and told them.

They weren't mad at me in any way.

The principal was alerted.

The bullies were suspended, and were put on the rule of having to stay away from me.

The counselors spoke calmly with me, handing me box after box of tissue.

The doctors consoled me and brought me back to health.

I became completely normal again.

I was so happy.

So blessed.

So why did it all come tumbling back down upon me?

Why did it all become ruined again?

The effects from the poison were still killing me.

Spreading slowly toward my heart.


	5. Chapter 5

December 15th, 1999.

10:30 p.m.

The day, year, and time of the rape.

I was just getting off of work, cleaning the store, locking the doors.

I left the tiny bookstore and began the three block walk to my house, enjoying the evening breeze and twinkling stars.

I should have gone home with my friend.

I wish I hadn't been so stupid.

Why was I so weak?

I couldn't fight back.

He had just appeared from the shadows of the alley.

And nobody answered my screams.


	6. Chapter 6

I hadn't gotten pregnant.

Nor an STD.

The only thing I got was the loss of my virginity.

My purity.

Mine.

I felt dirty and helpless.

Cheated.

I cried harshly.

It was only my Junior year.

I was still young.

I was still lost.

Astray.

A sheep within the wolf's teeth, my wool turning crimson.


	7. Chapter 7

I was put on stronger depression pills.

They didn't make a difference.

They just numbed me.

Made me motionless, mechanical.

Fake.

I was a puppet, my strings controlled by the evils of my emotions.

The deceptive shape-shifter behind it all.

But I was a blindfolded slave.

Wrapped in chains I couldn't see.

Whipped by ropes I couldn't feel.

Choked by flames and smoke I couldn't smell.

Or feel burning my flesh.


	8. Chapter 8

Fast forward to Senior year.

My grades were excellent.

My classes were highest level.

My teachers were loving and adoring.

My parents were supportive, the best, the motivation.

The depression was the bully.

The knife was the best friend.

Food was the enemy.

And the devil was the mastermind behind the whole plot.


	9. Chapter 9

The alley was welcoming.

The rain embracing.

The gun glinting.

The trigger promising.

Promising to end my pain.

End my suffering.

End my ever-lasting misery.

My ever-growing pain.

My fingers slid over to the trigger and felt it.

I toyed with the gun, my tears mixing with the rain that poured down my cheeks.

I put the gun to my head.

I shut my eyes.

Whispered goodbye.

And went to end my life.


	10. Chapter 10

And then my phone rang.

Startled, the gun fell from my hand and clattered to the pavement, coming to rest within a grey puddle.

I fumbled with my phone and checked the screen.

Mom.

I answered.

"Mom?" I whispered.

"Hi honey," her soothing voice sounded in my ear. "I just wanted to make sure you were safe. You didn't call me when school got out."

"Oh, um, I was just asking my math teacher about the homework," I lied. "I needed some clarification."

"Oh, okay," Mom said. "Well, hurry home and stay dry…it's getting dark."

I heard a slight crack in her voice when she mentioned "dark".

She was fighting tears.

The rape.

"I'll be careful…I promise," I choked out.

"Okay." I heard her smile through her tears, manage through her worry.

"Bye Mom."

"Wait, honey."

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Click.


	11. Chapter 11

I ran through the rain, throwing the gun into a trash can, my lungs screaming, my breath curling into the air. I rounded a corner and stopped a moment underneath an eave. I gasped and fingered my chest, feeling my heartbeat.

My racing heartbeat.

I was alive.

I screamed aloud and kept running.

I burst into my house and collapsed to my knees, shaking and weeping. My mom and dad ran in, expressions of total fear on their faces at the sound of my sobbing.

I couldn't even choke out a word.

I just sat and cried and let my parents surround me, holding me close.


	12. Chapter 12

I was still running through the fields, my pink ribbons fluttering out behind me, giggling.

"Catch me Daddy, catch me!" I squealed.

And he did.

Only…it wasn't my earthly father.


	13. Chapter 13

"Hope…Hope…with you I'll always cope…"

The last squeaks of the playful lullaby.

I was curled up on a couch, surrounded by other teenage girls and boys who had experienced depression and considered suicide.

"Let's turn in our Bibles to Psalm 139," the youth pastor smiled.

The sound of light, fluttering pages filled the room as we came to the place.

"Now let's read it together. 'O Lord, you have searched me and you know me…"

I read along with the others, my voice mingling with theirs.

"…I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…"

We all understood each other's pain.

We were there for each other.

We could and would get through this.

God had embraced us.


	14. Chapter 14

I am now happy and healthy, standing upon this graduation stage.

I no longer wish to kill myself, no longer feel the selfish desire to take my own life.

For I am fearfully and wonderfully made, one of God's masterpieces.

And on that drizzling, dark day when I had the gun to my head, my finger on the trigger, my mom had said the three little words that made me realize how foolish I had been.

That I was still loved.

5 minutes to write my suicide note.

20 minutes to get to the alley.

10 minutes to stare at the gun.

20 minutes for a flashback.

4 minutes for my mom to call me.

1 minute to hear "I love you."

60 minutes in all.

60 minutes had altered my life.

60 minutes, and I was alive.

60 minutes.

That's all it took.

_~The End~_


End file.
